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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7373471" data-attributes="member: 42582">That depends entirely on the context of actual play.When the feather turned out to be cursed, and hence not so useful for confronting the balrog-possessed brother, the game proceeded. When the balrog-possessed brother was decapitated in front of the mage PC - hence putting an end to his attempts to redeem his brother - the game proceeded. The player wrote new Beliefs for his PC - at the moment, they are:Joachim's blood will help make the Rod of the Blue Wizard.&nbsp; &nbsp; 
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I will learn more of the coming apocalypse (hell gates, demonic possession, …), so&nbsp; &nbsp; I will help Halika summon Joachim's spirit for revelation of Lungorthin's plans.

I am a Servant of the Secret Fire and will oppose Lungorthin's orcish legions, so I will read Joachim's secret paper to uncover his Storm of Lightning spell.Lungorthin is the balrog. Halika was a PC, but - as that player often does not make it to sessions - is played more often now as a NPC.If there is nothing left for the character to do in dramatic terms - either success or failure is total - then the campaign is over. (As Eero Tuovinen describes in his account of the &quot;standard narrativistic model&quot;.)This is the basis for my comparison to &quot;choose your own adventure&quot; (which [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] objects to).Establishing what to do from a list of options provided by the GM is modest agency.Hence when you say that there is more agency in (i) having the GM say &quot;You're in town, what do you do?&quot; then starting things at the situation the player has signalled as salient, I can only assume that you mean: there is more agency in choosing from the GM's list of possible situations, and in gettting the GM to tell you more about the world s/he has made up, than there is in actually providing the content of a situation. I don't know what conception of agency you are working with here.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7373471, member: 42582"] That depends entirely on the context of actual play. When the feather turned out to be cursed, and hence not so useful for confronting the balrog-possessed brother, the game proceeded. When the balrog-possessed brother was decapitated in front of the mage PC - hence putting an end to his attempts to redeem his brother - the game proceeded. The player wrote new Beliefs for his PC - at the moment, they are: [indent]Joachim's blood will help make the Rod of the Blue Wizard. I will learn more of the coming apocalypse (hell gates, demonic possession, …), so I will help Halika summon Joachim's spirit for revelation of Lungorthin's plans. I am a Servant of the Secret Fire and will oppose Lungorthin's orcish legions, so I will read Joachim's secret paper to uncover his Storm of Lightning spell.[/indent] Lungorthin is the balrog. Halika was a PC, but - as that player often does not make it to sessions - is played more often now as a NPC. If there is nothing left for the character to do in dramatic terms - either success or failure is total - then the campaign is over. (As Eero Tuovinen describes in his account of the "standard narrativistic model".) This is the basis for my comparison to "choose your own adventure" (which [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] objects to). Establishing what to do from a list of options provided by the GM is modest agency. Hence when you say that there is more agency in (i) having the GM say "You're in town, what do you do?" then starting things at the situation the player has signalled as salient, I can only assume that you mean: there is more agency in choosing from the GM's list of possible situations, and in gettting the GM to tell you more about the world s/he has made up, than there is in actually providing the content of a situation. I don't know what conception of agency you are working with here. [/QUOTE]

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